The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Floating Heap of Debris Twice the Size of Texas!



In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii, there is a floating heap of debris the size of a continent!

In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that’s twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists.

The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man’s land between San Francisco and Hawaii.

Marcus Eriksen, director of research and education at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, said his group has been monitoring the Garbage Patch for 10 years.

"With the winds blowing in and the currents in the gyre going circular, it’s the perfect environment for trapping," Eriksen said. "There’s nothing we can do about it now, except do no more harm."

The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco.

Link - Thanks Aar000n! (Photo: Kat Wade / Chronicle)


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Posted on February 1, 2008 at 7:55 pm by Alex
Category: Travel & Places



22 comments to "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Floating Heap of Debris Twice the Size of Texas!"

  • Tim
    February 1st, 2008 at 8:10 pm

    I am not buying this story…

  • JamesB
    February 1st, 2008 at 8:21 pm

    You too, Tim? If there really was a continent-sized garbage heap floating around, you’d think we would have heard about it before now. And it would definitely show up on Google Earth.

  • Nastia
    February 1st, 2008 at 8:22 pm

    yea it’s not that I don’t believe this exists, but I wish there was an actual picture of it.

  • biltmore
    February 1st, 2008 at 9:15 pm

    @ JamesB

    You know how much data it would take to have every inch of the ocean mapped on Google Earth?! Way too much.

  • SoftwareSamurai
    February 1st, 2008 at 9:51 pm

    This story is a lie.

    If anyone wants to prove me wrong, I dare anyone to get anyone currently floating around in the SPACE STATION to video tape such a huge thing. If it really is twice the size of Texas, then they should be able to spot it quite easily.

    Note: It is not up to ME to prove to everyone this story is false. It is up to Justin Berton to prove to everyone this story is true.

  • Justin Lynes
    February 1st, 2008 at 9:53 pm

    I’ve heard about these things before… ThisAmericanLife did a story a while back, and my first instinct was to see it on google earth… but they only use data supplied by governments.

    Oh, and Alex, Brooks Brothers is America’s oldest men’s clothier.

  • Aar000n
    February 1st, 2008 at 10:12 pm

    To all of the people doubting this…

    I don’t think it’s a solid mass of trash, and that’s why you won’t see it from space. I’ve heard that it’s basically a lot of trash spread out over that area.

    I too have my doubts about the size of it. I’m guessing it’s somewhere around the size of Texas at max. This didn’t just come out of no where, so there’s something out there.

  • Christophe
    February 1st, 2008 at 10:26 pm

    From wikipedia:
    “Some sources [Neatorama!] have incorrectly reported that there is a “floating continent” of debris that is roughly twice the size of Texas, however no scientific investigation [...] has verified this”

    “In samples taken from the gyre in 2001, the mass of [biodegrading] plastic exceeded that of zooplankton by a factor of six”

    And an intersting movie.
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3892310789953943147
    (really starts @5:00)

  • Loman
    February 1st, 2008 at 11:15 pm

    Oh it’s true.

    Texas is relatively small compared to the entire East-half of the Pacific Ocean -

    and you’re forgetting one thing: DEPTH.

  • KrisKros
    February 2nd, 2008 at 12:20 am

    I’ve heard of this before, although I would want more proof of the exact size.

    Maybe with the rising price of oil, it will one day be profitable to clean it up and recycle it. And it might take that long till someone does it too.

  • Kraka
    February 2nd, 2008 at 1:32 am

    I found the Greenpeace animation:

    http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/trashing-our-ocean s/ocean_pollution_animation

  • Alex
    February 2nd, 2008 at 1:35 am

    Ah, thanks for letting me know, Justin Lynes!

  • su.wei
    February 2nd, 2008 at 5:19 am

    wow. this makes me sad. (if in fact it is true). but i do think kriskros has a good point about recycling the plastic…

  • Animal
    February 2nd, 2008 at 5:33 am

    If this were anything more than hype and scare tactics, there would be hi-res pictures and video. Such would be trivial to obtain given the bajillions of dollars “Green” research gets nowadays.

    If anything, there may be a section of the Pacific which has a higher than normal amount of debris.

    Its stories like these that are turning people off of the “green movement”. Environmentalists’ hyperbole is just like the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

  • SoftwareSamurai
    February 2nd, 2008 at 7:52 am

    @Kraka

    Ooooo! They’ve got an “animation” of it! Well gee, that makes it true then!

    Oh hey, I’ve just found an “animation” of Greenpeace leaders clubbing baby seals for their blubber! That means it’s true too, right?

  • HollywoodBob
    February 2nd, 2008 at 9:50 am

    The area that’s twice the size of Texas is the actual Gyre where all the flotsam ends up. The trash doesn’t clump together like floating island of debris. The article really makes it sound like it though.

  • bob
    February 2nd, 2008 at 1:48 pm

    Another one of these enviromental stories with “strangley absent picture syndrome”

  • Matt
    February 3rd, 2008 at 1:02 am

    I know you are only finding these stories, and posting them. I would however only consider it true if there were hard core factual evidence. How come a Ship can’t go there and prove it’s there by using every media outlet. Also, if Greenpeace says it’s there and all they have is an animation to prove it, then Homer Simpson must also be real, and physically exist in human form.

  • Chris L
    February 3rd, 2008 at 2:42 am

    It’s exceedingly sparse. Wikipedia reports a mean mass of 5.1 kg per square kilometer. At that rate you probably wouldn’t even notice if you swam through it.

  • Lasse
    February 4th, 2008 at 6:26 am

    I see that there are a lot of people her who are probably not believing that the moon landings didn’t happen either. :-)

  • someone
    February 4th, 2008 at 10:41 am

    ^^ double negative

  • Take the Time?
    February 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm

    This might help you understand what the problem is.

    Krimmeny people, do some research before you make up your mind. The article gives you a great place to start, the Algalita Marine Research Foundation webpage perhaps?
    http://www.algalita.org/

    The plastic doesn’t have to be surficial to be there.

    http://www.algalita.org/pelagic_plastic_mov.html

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